`I’d like to see that one,’ commented Bond.
`Her story is that she first took a fancy to the photographs they’ve got of you. Admired your looks and so on.’ M’s mouth turned downwards at the corners as if he had just sucked at a lemon. `She read up all your cases. Decided that you were the hell of a fellow.’
Bond looked down his nose. M’s face was non-committal.
`She said you particularly appealed to her because you reminded her of the hero of a book by some Russian fellow called Lermontov. Apparently it was her favourite book. This hero chap liked gambling and spent his whole time getting in and out of scraps. Anyway, you reminded her of him. She says she came to think of nothing else, and one day the idea came to her that if only she could transfer to one of their foreign centres she could get in touch with you and you would come and rescue her.’
`I’ve never heard such a crazy story, sir. Surely Head of T didn’t swallow it.’
`Now wait a moment,’ M’s voice was testy. `Just don’t be in too much of a hurry simply because something’s turned up you’ve never come across before. Suppose you happened to be a film star instead of being in this particular trade. You’d get daft letters from girls all over the world stuffed with Heaven knows what sort of rot about not being able to live without you and so on. Here’s a silly girl doing a secretary’s job in Moscow. Probably the whole department is staffed by women, like our Records. Not a man in the room to look at, and here she is, faced with your, er, dashing features on a file that’s constantly coming up for review. And she gets what I believe they call a `crush’ on these pictures just as secretaries all over the world get crushes on these dreadful faces in the magazines,’ M waved his pipe sideways to indicate his ignorance of these grisly female habits. `The Lord knows I don’t know much about these things, but you must admit that they happen.’
Bond smiled at the appeal for help. `Well, as a matter of fact, sir, I’m beginning to see there is some sense in it. There’s no reason why a Russian girl shouldn’t be just as silly as an English one. But she must have got guts to do what she did. Does Head of T say if she realized the consequences if she was found out?’
`He said she was frightened out of her wits,’ said M. `Spent the whole time on the boat looking round to see if anybody was watching her. But it seems they were the usual peasants and commuters that take these boats, and as it was a late boat there weren’t many passengers anyway. But wait a minute. You haven’t heard half the story.’ M took a long pull at his pipe and blew a cloud of smoke up towards the slowly turning fan above his head. Bond watched the smoke get caught up in the blades and whirled into nothingness. `She told Kerim that this passion for you gradually developed into a phobia. She got to hate the sight of Russian men. In time this turned into a dislike of the regime and particularly of the work she was doing for them and, so to speak, against you. So she applied for a transfer abroad, and since her languages were very good–English and French–in due course she was offered Istanbul if she would join the Cipher Department, which meant a cut in pay. To cut a long story short, after six months’ training, she got to Istanbul about three weeks ago. Then she sniffed about and soon got hold of the name of our man, Kerim. He’s been there so long that everybody in Turkey knows what he does by now. He doesn’t mind, and it takes people’s eyes off the special men we send in from time to time. There’s no harm in having a front man in some of these places. Quite a lot of customers would come to us if they knew where to go and who to talk to.’